The Nature of Living
by wendy-doesntcare
Summary: It's the little things that make up a life, but it's the little things they do together that make it worth living. A story collection centered around Craig and Tweek.
1. Leather

The leather belt was his favorite. After twenty-one hits, his ass was already red and throbbing, his breath exploding past his lips in little gasps and whimpers and moans. Tweek gripped the blanket, stifling another moan as Craig brought the belt down across Tweek's naked ass once more. The load crack of the leather coming in contact with flesh was met with a sharp intake of breath, a heavy groan, and a shudder. It smarted, leaving a white line across the red before blending in flawlessly with the rest of the leather-belt-induced stripes

"Twenty-two" Craig ticked off the number, dropping the belt and rubbing his hands over his lover's raw ass. "Happy birthday, Tweek."


	2. Dream

They had pointed hats that dripped with blood and teeth longer and sharper than a sharks. Their bony hands tightened around his throat, constricting the flow of air as a maniacal laughter rent the air. Their sharp, filed-to-point nails broke the skin, causing a strangled sort of scream to rip past the blonde's lips as he struggled under their smaller bodies.

They started chanting his name in sing-song voices and, finally, with a mighty heave, Tweek lunged forward, eyes flying open as he gasped for breath, body drenched in a frigid sweat, fingers finding his neck and rubbing before he twisted his shaking hands into his hair, pressing his face into his knees.

"It's okay, Tweek, it was just a dream." A voice muttered to his side, wrapping a warm arm around the others boney shoulders and pulling him close.

Craig was used to waking up to his scream of panic. He was used to the nightmares that plagued Tweek's sleep. "It was just a dream."


	3. Cigarette

Tweek tapped the top of the cigarette case against the flat of his palm exactly twenty-two times before switching hands and repeating the process. Once they were packed on both hands a perfectly even forty-four times, he pulled off the plastic on the top half and flipped the white and gold box open. He pulled the tin foil off as well, meticulously crumbled up the plastic and covered it with the foil, then dropped it into the ash tray to his right with barely a second glance.

Once he had his cigarettes ready, he selected the second one in the first row and passed it over to Craig and then removed the second from the second row. He lit it with a hearty drag, leaning back in his seat as he exhaled the smoke with a sigh, the buzzing sensation of relief starting its humming pace through his brain.

Every new pack was treated the same, every second cigarette the perfect start to a day.


	4. Drink

"You're hard." he slurred the words out with a drunken giggle, eyes sparkling in the sparse light of the bedroom as he took another swig from the bottle in his hands. He pressed up to Craig, hands fumbling awkwardly at his belt as he pressed heavy, drunken kisses to his neck.

Craig pushed him back, taking the bottle out of his hands and a drink for himself, "It's your fault, so you better find a way to fix it." he murmured the words out against Tweek's mouth, watching him drop to his knees and quickly unfasten his belt.


	5. Dagger

The dagger slid in with ease, the flesh falling to the side - as if someone were simply unzipping it - as he drug the blade up the smooth expanse of skin. He met resistance when the knife lodged itself in a rib bone and with smooth grace, he ripped his weapon free of the gore.

With hungry eyes pinned to his victim, he ran the steel over his tongue, tasting the tang and copper bitterness of Tweek's draining life.

For a heart-stopping moment, Craig was filled with grief as his eyes met the other's face.

But that was only a moment.


	6. Paint

Tweek bit the end of his paint brush, looking down at his impromptu canvas with a knot in his brow. After a few seconds of staring and tilting his head to get the different angles, he dipped his brush into the warm red color he had created, swirling it around a few times to make sure it was mixed well before adding a few more details to his painting.

Once he was satisfied that he was done, he leaned back to get a better view, smiling faintly at the clouds and sun he had colored onto Craig's sleeping face. He moved off of him, careful not to slosh the murky water, and went to turn on the fan that sat on the bedside table, aiming it at Craig's face to dry the paint so when - or if - Craig moved he wouldn't ruin it in his sleep.


	7. Spatula

"See? You just cut it up in thin slices-" Tweek showed him for what felt like the millionth time, pointedly cutting a thin slice off of what was left of the potato he was working on and glancing over at Craig. He frowned immediately when he saw that Craig wasn't even paying attention and instead had a lime green spatula in his hands, playing with it.

"Are you even listening to me?" he asked, not bothering to mask his annoyance.

"Yes," Craig glanced over at him, arching a large eyebrow.

"Then what did I just say?"

"Something about making chips. Bend over." he shrugged, pushing away from the counter and stepping behind Tweek. "I wanna see how loud this pops against your bare ass." he pressed the words into Tweek's ear, feeling him tense up and shudder against him.


	8. Distance

The distance was getting to him. The phone calls were becoming frustrating, the texts becoming grating reminders, the Skype calls complete and utter torture.

And then there were the visits. Every other weekend, for one night, if even that, and then he was gone in the morning with a scrawled note left on the coffee pot.

Tweek crumpled the note up, frustrated tears stinging at his eyes, threatening to spill over as he turned his face up and ground his teeth, trying his best not to blink and set them free. His phone beeped twice from his bedside table and his shoulders stiffened at the sound of the message.

This wasn't working, the distance was proving too much, and the added pressure was enough to suffocate him.


	9. Camera

"Tweek, I can't even see your face. Tilt your screen." Craig grumbled, exasperated as he stared at the box that he had pulled up on his computer screen, showing him Tweek's chest.

"How do I tilt my screen?" he heard the words and glanced down at the bottom right of his screen, thinking maybe, just maybe, he had forgotten to turn the volume up.

No, the volume was up, and when he hoovered his mouse over it, he saw that it was up to one hundred. So that meant he hadn't misunderstood him either. "Tilt the fucking screen, Tweek. The goddamn camera is at the top of your fucking screen and if you push the damn screen back I'll actually be able to see you." he ground the words out in an increasingly annoyed tone, moving his hand up under his chullo hat.

After what felt like forever with tons of partial words filtering through the speakers and the occasional thump and shuffle, Tweek's face finally came into view and it wasn't hard to tell that he had simply ducked down when the task had become to difficult.

"Can you see me now?" his words came through first, followed shortly by his mouth moving and Craig held back the sudden urge to throw his computer at the wall and be done with all of it.

Instead, he smiled, more of a grimace of pain than a friendly quirk of lips, and rolled his shoulders, dropping his hand to the desk, "Yeah, I can see you now."

Webcaming with Tweek was not going to work out well, he could already tell.


	10. Reading

Tweek ground his teeth together, tapping his fingers against the glass counter in annoyance as he glared at his customer. Craig opened his mouth to say something, glancing down from the menu to Tweek, but then closed his lips and looked back up, reading over every type of coffee, tea, cookie, cake, and pastry they had up on the board.

"Are you going to order anything or just stand there gaping at the f-freaking sign?!" Tweek finally snapped, managing to stop short of actually cussing his customer.

Craig looked back at him, arching a large eyebrow at him and managing to alter his usual scowl to a cannibalistic glower, causing Tweek to twitch and pull his hand off the counter top. "I'm just gonna gape at the sign." he grumbled, voice low and monotone, looking back at the menu and reading over everything once more, despite the fact that he could easily list all that they sold and the price.

Watching Tweek lose his temper was too entertaining to simply order something.


End file.
